In the winter of 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt rushed into the White House cabinet room. He was obviously agitated and all eyes were on him. Everyone leaned forward waiting, bracing themselves for bad news. "Gentlemen do you know what happened this morning?" Everyone took a breath and waited. "Just now I saw a chestnut-sided warbler and this is only February." Roosevelt had just had one of his many bird epiphanies and everyone sighed with relief. He was an avid ornithologist. The cabinet should have known such scenes were common with Roosevelt a great lover of nature and the outdoors. Douglas Brinkley in his magnificent new biography, "The Wilderness Warrior Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America," chronicles this love of nature and Roosevelt's crusade to save the American Wilderness. In a series of executive orders Roosevelt saved such U.S. treasures as the Grand Canyon, the Devil's Tower, and the Petrified Forest. On a single day in 1908 he created forty- five national forests. Roosevelt saved entire species from extinction, the buffalo, the manatee, the antelope, egrets and the elk, yet he had another side, a blood lust to kill the big game that he championed. Myth says that he would not shot a baby bear__ the truth __ it was an adult bear that he ordered to knifed. Brinkley explains this behavior as his belief in triumphal Darwinism. This book is a colorful and detailed look (940 pages) at Roosevelt's naturalist achievements and adventure's__a must read for Roosevelt fans.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
BOOKS: The Wilderness Warrior
In the winter of 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt rushed into the White House cabinet room. He was obviously agitated and all eyes were on him. Everyone leaned forward waiting, bracing themselves for bad news. "Gentlemen do you know what happened this morning?" Everyone took a breath and waited. "Just now I saw a chestnut-sided warbler and this is only February." Roosevelt had just had one of his many bird epiphanies and everyone sighed with relief. He was an avid ornithologist. The cabinet should have known such scenes were common with Roosevelt a great lover of nature and the outdoors. Douglas Brinkley in his magnificent new biography, "The Wilderness Warrior Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America," chronicles this love of nature and Roosevelt's crusade to save the American Wilderness. In a series of executive orders Roosevelt saved such U.S. treasures as the Grand Canyon, the Devil's Tower, and the Petrified Forest. On a single day in 1908 he created forty- five national forests. Roosevelt saved entire species from extinction, the buffalo, the manatee, the antelope, egrets and the elk, yet he had another side, a blood lust to kill the big game that he championed. Myth says that he would not shot a baby bear__ the truth __ it was an adult bear that he ordered to knifed. Brinkley explains this behavior as his belief in triumphal Darwinism. This book is a colorful and detailed look (940 pages) at Roosevelt's naturalist achievements and adventure's__a must read for Roosevelt fans.
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